The Indiana Pacers are in no better position to pull off a historic upset in this first-round playoff series with the Cleveland Cavaliers than when they awoke Sunday morning.
The Pacers had a chance to put the Cavs, at the time reeling with playoff inexperience and the crushing weight of expectations with LeBron James, squarely behind the eight ball in this series by winning Game 4.
But Indiana fell behind by a huge deficit in the first half for the second consecutive game, erased it in the third and early fourth quarters again, but couldn't sustain the momentum. Kyle Korver and James made enough plays down the stretch for the Cavs to win, 104-100, tying this series at 2-2 with Game 5 on Wednesday in Cleveland.
James has never lost a first-round series in 12 previous playoffs. Now, he has two of the next three games at home to try and keep his streak alive.
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"I think just tying the series up and coming back home is something we feel good about," said Kevin Love, who like every other Cav not named James has mostly struggled in this series. "We feel like it's a best-of-three type series and at the end of the day, if it comes to it, we have two games at home. We like our advantage and we're going to use that to our advantage (Wednesday) night."
The Pacers trailed by 17 at halftime of Game 3 but steamrolled the Cavs in the second half and pulled out a 92-90 win behind 30 points from Bojan Bogdanovic, a playoff career high. They were down 10 through two quarters in Game 4 but fought back and were ahead 93-91 with 3:49 remaining before Korver connected on two deep 3s.
Indiana won Game 1 behind a playoff career-high 32 points from Victor Oladipo, who has struggled since (19-of-53 shooting in the last three games). Domantas Sabonis played a big role in the Pacers' comeback Sunday, scoring a playoff career-best 19 off the bench.
The Pacers are getting the best night of someone's playoff career almost each game of this series, and it's been good enough for two wins. Then again, the Cavs' two wins were by a combined seven points, and outside of James (32.5 ppg this series) almost no one is scoring.
Love is the next closest at 12.0 points in this series and JR Smith is third with 10.0 points.
"We're not losing confidence," point guard Darren Collison said, according to the Indianapolis Star. "This team is the defending Eastern Conference champions. Whatever you want to say about them, this is a very good team. They've been through a lot over the last few years. We're fine. There's no need to overreact or panic. We're going to go into their building and we're going to give the same effort."
The Cavaliers say point guard George Hill (back spasms) is questionable to play in Game 5. He missed Game 4 with the same injury -- four injections before the game were not enough to ease the pain to the point where he could play.
Jose Calderon started for Hill on Sunday and scored five points in 19 minutes. The Cavs are 24-9 this year (regular season and playoffs) when Calderon starts.
Hill is the only player on either team listed on the injury report. But Love suffered an injury to his left thumb in Game 1 and it's affected him. He's shooting 17-of-47 in the series with 11 turnovers. Catching and gripping the ball have been obvious problems.
"I've been able to get up a lot of shots," Love said. "I think initially it was painful and in the few days that followed, but now it's kind of subsided and I'm just getting my feel back in my left thumb."
